On November 4, 2008, Gabrielle Giffords was re-elected by the people of Arizona’s Eighth Congressional District - a diverse area that covers 9,000 square miles including a 114 mile border with Mexico. For almost ten years, Giffords has dedicated herself to public service as an elected official. A third generation Tucsonan, she represented her hometown in the Arizona Legislature from 2000-2005 where she was the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona State Senate.

Giffords holds a Master’s Degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University and a B.A. from Scripps College where she was awarded a William Fulbright Scholarship to study for a year in Chihuahua, Mexico. She is married to Captain Mark Kelly, a Navy Pilot and NASA astronaut, and is the only U.S. Representative with an active duty military spouse.

Green, who was born on Sept. 11., 2001, was recently elected to her school’s student council and was brought to the event by a neighbor who thought she might be interested. She was the granddaughter of Dallas Green, the former manager of the Philadelphia Phillies major league baseball team.

Her father, John Green, a Los Angeles Dodgers scout, says she loved ballet and gymnastics and was the only girl on her baseball team.

Roll was the chief judge for the U.S. District for Arizona, who sat on the bench since 1991. He was in the middle of some of the state’s most contentious court battles, many of them having to do with illegal immigration.
VIDEO: Judge John Roll

Dorwan Stoddard, 76

Stoddard was the maintenance manager at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ in Tucson. His wife, Mavy, was shot in the legs during the attack and is expected to be released from the hospital.

“He loved to sit and just talk and tell you stories,” says the church’s office manager, Judy Nowak. He was retired after working as a heavy equipment operator, she says. “Everybody in our church knows him. He’s going to be sorely missed.”

Gabriel Zimmerman, 30

Zimmerman, who was engaged, was the director of community outreach for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and had organized the event. He was chatting with constituents in the line to speak with the third-term congresswoman when the first shots rang out.

“He was sweet, he was gentle, he was soft-spoken,” says Tucson lawyer Michael McNulty, who chaired Giffords’ campaigns. Zimmerman, he says, was perfectly suited for his job as the congresswoman’s director of community outreach. “Gabe not only had sort of a native instinct to care for people,” McNulty says, “he had a degree in social work.”

Phyllis Schneck, 79

Schneck was a snowbird who spent eight months of the year in Tucson and the rest back home in New Jersey, says her son Ernie Schneck of Rutherford, N.J. “She was a great person, had a lot of friends,” he says. “She liked to cook, she liked to bake, she made quilts, she was very active in church .”

Her husband of 56 years, Ernest, died in 2007. Besides her son, she had two daughters, seven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Schneck was always generous, her sone says, and once helped raise money to donate an ambulance to a New Jersey hospital. Her latest hobby, he says, was making BBQ aprons with New York Jets and Giants logos to sell at church sales. She wasn’t typically interested in politics, but neighbors have told the family she took an interest in Giffords.

Her son says he planned to fly to Arizona to visit on Jan. 16 and always sent his mom off for her winter stay with a round-trip ticket to be sure she would come home.

Morris, according to autotrack, was the wife of George Morris. Her husband, a retired airline pilot according to Clyde Nelson who says his son is married to their daughter, was wounded and is hospitalized.

Family friend Bill Royle told the Reno Gazette-Journal she was “well-versed in world affairs…She was a beautiful person. They don’t get any better.” Nelson says she loved entertaining her family and friends. “It is a great loss.”